Elephant in the room

My View

At the outset I want to categorically state that I have absolute faith in my partner Jaggy’s integrity. I grew up in the bridge world watching him play, and have partnered him for nearly five years now. You learn a lot about a person in such a long time. For someone who takes as much pride in his game, for someone whose identity is so closely linked to this game that the game defines him – the question of ethics simply doesn’t come into play. Some people are not cut from that fabric. And Jaggy is decidedly one of them. 

Do I have the credentials to make such a claim? Even those who hurled the accusations, have stated on record that they can’t imagine me taking an unethical action. I think that does give me the right.

Yes, they have also questioned my bridge abilites in the same breath – but that’s a fight for another day. Suffice it say that I wouldn’t be at the top of the tables for years on end, or the go to person for a large no of players for advice or bridge solutions, if I wasn’t, atleast, competent.

But these are just statements, and statements aren’t proof.

So perhaps we can do some forensic study.

The background

Lets look at the standings at the end of day 5. We are into RR3 of finals. A triple roundrobin is being played amongst 8 pairs for 3 positions. So, 17 out of 21 matches have been completed. Lets look at the situation.

As you can see, end of the day, we were not just top of the chart, we were ahead of 4th place by 32 VPs and 22 Performance points. So when Jaggy asked me how we were placed, I told him that no matter what happened, we can not be moved out of top 3. Its a mathematical impossibility.